Labour launch NHS battle ahead of local elections

Opposition leader Ed Miliband is looking to the NHS and the care sector as a platform for engaging with voters, in the run up to the local elections of May 2.

Joined by shadow health minister Andy Burnham and shadow minister for older people Liz Kendall, in Lancashire today, Mr Miliband attacked the Coalition’s healthcare record as putting the financial stability of the NHS in jeopardy, at the same time as confirming the launch of an Independent Commission into how services can be made more affordable through effective integration.

Ed Miliband began his speech: “The NHS is facing the biggest challenge in its history. The toughest financial pressures for 50 years are colliding with our rising need for care as society gets older and we see more people with chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes and dementia.”

Criticising the ‘free market ideology’ and ‘unnecessary reorganisation’ that he sees as damaging NHS goals, Mr Miliband spoke of a different vision that prioritises ‘co-operation and reintegration’, and offers service users one point-of-contact rather than having to go through the frustrations of repeating themselves to different departments.

He continued: “We know that budgets will be tighter under the next Labour government. But even in these tough times we want the NHS to provide a better service for patients.

“The changes we propose will ensure that – but they do something else too. They will save billions of pounds which can be better spent elsewhere in the NHS. These reforms are necessary if we are going to ensure that the high quality effective NHS, which the British people expect, is affordable in the decades to come.”

He concluded: “Labour created the NHS after 1945. New Labour rescued the NHS after 1997. One Nation Labour will renew it for the 21st Century.”

Shadow health minister Andy Burnham poured more scorn on the government, saying: “The Government is taking the NHS down the wrong path. Ministers have put it on a fast-track to fragmentation when the future demands integration. They want more competition, setting hospital against hospital, when it is collaboration that will bring the greatest gains.

“NHS staff are feeling battered and bruised. They can see everything they care about being washed away in this dash to privatisation and patients paying the price. Labour wants to give them hope by building a genuine alternative based on the values they share: public service and people before profits.

“Whole Person Care is a vision for a 21st century health and care service. By uniting social care with physical and mental, it builds a single service that can deal with all of one person's needs. It updates and extends the vision of the post-war Labour Government and makes it ready for the challenges of the century of the ageing society.”

Accepting the challenge of leading the Independent Commission, GP Sir John Oldham commented:

“I am very pleased to undertake this important task. 70% of activity and cost in the care system is for people with multiple chronic diseases, which includes a rising number of older people. Their care crosses organisational boundaries, and is fragmented. Those patients say: I want you to treat the whole of me, and act as one team, which also leads to better outcomes and greater efficiency for the whole system. We need to bring that about.

“If we don’t change, the crisis of need approaching rapidly will make the NHS and care system unsustainable, and reduce the competitiveness of our economy driving a spiral of decline. It is that significant.”